Synthetic benchmarks

The Samsung Galaxy K zoom is powered by an Exynos 5260 Hexa developed in Samsung's own labs. It's based on ARM's big.LITTLE design with two fast Cortex-A15 cores running at 1.7GHz and four lower-power Cortex-A7 cores at 1.3GHz. All six cores can work simultaneously.

The K zoom was allotted 2GB RAM, great for a mid-range device, and the processor is coupled with a relatively fast Mali-T624 GPU. Another plus is that the device is running a fairly recent Android 4.4.2 KitKat, plus the screen is 720p so the GPU doesn't have to work as hard as on 1080p phones.

Basemark OS II (single-core)

Basemark OS II (multi-core)

Higher is better

Oppo Find 7a10256

Galaxy S5 (Snapdragon 801)10063

Sony Xperia Z210044

LG G3 (16GB)9937

Galaxy K zoom9412

Basemark X

Higher is better

Samsung Galaxy K zoom4962

We've included some flagships and a mid-range phone like the Galaxy Grand 2, which uses a Snapdragon 400 chipset (4x Cortex-A7 plus Adreno 305). The two additional Cortex-A15 cores have a big impact and in multithreaded performance the Galaxy K zoom is closer to the LG G3 flagship than it is to the Grand 2.

In the full system test AnTuTu 4 the K zoom practically matched the likes of LG G3 and Sony Xperia Z2.

GeekBench 3

Higher is better

Oppo Find 73178

Galaxy S5 (Snapdragon 801)3011

Sony Xperia Z22856

LG G3 (16GB)2563

Samsung Galaxy K zoom2000

Samsung Galaxy Grand 21159

AnTuTu 4

Higher is better

Oppo Find 738484

Galaxy S5 (Snapdragon 801)36018

Sony Xperia Z233182

LG G3 (16GB)32780

Samsung Galaxy K zoom32312

Samsung Galaxy Grand 217106

Interestingly, the GFX 2.7 T-Rex test shows quite poor performance from the Mali-T624. However in the newer benchmark, Manhattan, the Galaxy K zoom surprisingly tops the Adreno 330-packing flagships by quite a margin. That's even in the off-screen test where the difference in physical screen resolution doesn't matter.

GFX 2.7 T-Rex (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

Oppo Find 728

Galaxy S5 (Snapdragon 801)27.8

Sony Xperia Z227.2

LG G3 (16GB)27.2

Samsung Galaxy Grand 25.8

Samsung Galaxy K zoom3.7

GFX 2.7 T-Rex (onscreen)

Higher is better

Sony Xperia Z228.7

Galaxy S5 (Snapdragon 801)28.1

LG G3 (16GB)20.5

Oppo Find 719.9

Samsung Galaxy Grand 210.6

Samsung Galaxy K zoom4.5

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

Samsung Galaxy K zoom14.7

Galaxy S5 (Snapdragon 801)11.8

Sony Xperia Z211.7

LG G3 (16GB)11.4

Oppo Find 711.1

Samsung Galaxy Grand 21.9

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

Samsung Galaxy K zoom24.5

Sony Xperia Z212.2

Galaxy S5 (Snapdragon 801)11.7

LG G3 (16GB)7.2

Oppo Find 76.7

Samsung Galaxy Grand 24

We're not sure if this is a problem with the test or if Manhattan is the best case scenario for the Mali-T624. Using Epic Citadel at Ultra quality as a tie-breaker we're going to call the good GFX 3.0 score a fluke. Running at just over 30fps on screen (that's 720p resolution) isn't great performance.

Epic Citadel (Ultra)

Higher is better

Galaxy S5 (Snapdragon 801)53.7

Sony Xperia Z252.6

LG G3 (16GB)43.2

Oppo Find 742.2

Samsung Galaxy K zoom32.9

Samsung's highly optimized browser gets along great with the Samsung-made chipset and it posts the best Kraken 1.1 score among the selected phones, including the Galaxy S5. The browser test result is also excellent even when you consider that the 720p screen resolution lightens the load of rendering web pages.

Kraken 1.1

Lower is better

Samsung Galaxy K zoom5085

Galaxy S5 (Snapdragon 801)6043

Oppo Find 76363

LG G3 (16GB)6987

Sony Xperia Z27041

BrowserMark 2.1

Higher is better

LG G3 (16GB)1474

Oppo Find 71452

Galaxy S5 (Snapdragon 801)1398

Samsung Galaxy K zoom1351

Sony Xperia Z21224

The processor of the Galaxy K zoom proved surprisingly fast getting in competition with Snapdragon 801-powered flagships. With 2GB RAM the phone handles multitasking with easy and browsing the web is as fast as on a Galaxy S5 (save for the resolution difference).

Gaming performance proved to be a bit of a weak spot for the Galaxy K zoom and Mali-T624. 3D games will run even at high quality settings but you'll have to sacrifice framerate (for action games running at 60fps rather than 30fps is important). Still, that's a great performance coming from an essentially a mid-range smartphone.